I have been doing 10 hour days (7am - 5pm) at a construction site for a new shopping complex. Most of the workers were doing 8-10 hour days, 6 days a week.

The ratio of men to women at the site would be about 100 to 1, and most of the women at the site work in the air conditioned offices, well away from the actual construction work.

Then came the rain and the cyclones, and work fell behind. So now they are bringing in portable lighting and working at night to get back on schedule. One plant operator did not sleep for 24 hrs recently, went home and was then called back to do a 2 hour job, and then sent home again to get some sleep.

Eventually the shopping complex will be opened, and women can wander through the shopping complex and look at all the new shops, but the vast majority will not have any concept at how it was all built.

They will also have no concept of the hours spent working in the hot sun or at night to get it built.

They will also have no concept of the number of men at the site required to pay child support, and the more they earn, the more they pay.

They will also have no concept of having to pay child support to someone, while having no say in how that other person spends the money.

The above is real, and very typical of being a father.

I didn't even bother to fully read Kristin's article for the simple reason that the author's title explains everything. What a stupid notion to compare a state premier with priviledges through the roof & money to boot with average fatherhood. Give the average father free generous superannuation & let him retire at 40 & you'll soon see a change in the quality of fathers.

The fact that the State of Tas mania is about to go bankrupt and is a desperate financial position, would have nothing to do with his decision would it?

Changing the way we view work and family so that both men and women can participate in work and home (should they desire) can only be a positive step. As more men want to spend more time with their kids, maybe there will be more support for programs like job-share, part-time, work from home etc.

There are some jobs where that is not always possible but I reckon most jobs would lend themselves to greater flexibility. Being a PM or a Premier would probably allow less time for family than other roles but it could be managed with some creative delegating and sharing of the load. It is not an easy job for someone with a young family.

As vanna argues, there should be more women in the heavy end of construction as well - these jobs can be shared easily. However, women are not generally hired by builders - that is a prejudice as vanna highlights that needs to be overcome. I am surprised you would push for more women on site vanna, but I agree those opportunities should be there for women as well as men.

A surprisingly positive article from a sociolgist about men.

When men become fathers they all WANT to spend more time with their kids, but are forced by to increase their working hours. Bills to pay.

It's dads who struggle. Even a work-sleep balance is hard to have... and a "Work-Life' balance is a fantasy for dads. It's women who demand the luxury of a plesant work-life balance.

I live in one of Sydney's nice inner-suburbs, and it's interesting seeing how rarely I see women alone with kids on the weekend... It's always either dad, or the whole family. Looking at these men's faces they are happy, but tired.

Exhausted after dad's 60hr week in the city. On the weekends they are giving mum some time off, but when does he have some time off? Never.

It's no wonder that men are refusing to become fathers anymore. On Friday and Saturday nights Kings Cross is full of 'hens nights' but never do you see a bucks night anymore.

Men don't look forward to marriage and their mates are worried, not happy. Men are are more likely to say "are you sure about this mate?" rather than celebrate when a friend announces his engagement. They know that fatherhood is long years of long hours... followed by watching powerless as your children are fed to the divorce lawyers.

She keeps the kids, the house, she keeps 50% of your after-tax income in so-called 'child support' and she keeps you on a leash, as she controls if your kids can see you at all. No wonder men are Afraid of fatherhood.

Add to this school discrimination which results in only one third of University students being male, women have a real man-drought.

The sad result is the offices in the city are full of successful, professional young-ish women with barely a boyfriend, let alone a husband amongst them... Watching they careers advance, but missing out on the thing they usually want most of all, a family.

These women should thank feminism for destroying their chance of becomming mothers

Pelican,
"women are not generally hired by builders"

Sorry to disappoint you, but women rarely apply for such jobs. They have no interest in scaffolding, pouring cement or driving cranes.

When women walk through the palatial style shopping complex, complete with sky domes, internal fountains and giant hanging mobiles, most women will have absolutely no idea how it was built, and most do not care how it was built.

Similarly, most women have very little idea of how men make a living, and what it is to be a father in our feminist society.

An intertesting statistic emerging from the US is that single parent fathers work significantly more hours than single parent mothers, while spending almost the same number of hours looking after their children as single parent mothers.

Begins to make one wonder about mothers in a feminist society.

So you don't want women on building sites? If women thought builders would hire them they might apply but it is not an industry that is known to encourage women.

You have a very poor view of women vanna, worse than most of the extreme feminists hold about men and yet you choose to emulate that which you clearly despise. You might think that women contribute nothing to society and you obviously have little respect for the role of mothering - also not an easy job. In a free society you can hold any personal prejudices you like but you are so wrong about the contributions of women, I hardly know where to begin.

ppp
The reason why it has been women discussing issues of work-life balance is that women generally have to juggle child care responsibiities, work and care of the home. Women don't have someone at home supporting them while they are at work, unless there is a nanny or housekeeper. The reason why men spend time with their kids on the weekends is to spend time with their kids - simple. Most of them still work fulltime during the week and that is exactly my argument for greater flexibility.

Raising kids does not get a guernsey from any politicians these days. I chose to stay at home because we considered it important, There is not much support for families where there is one parent (still usually the mother) at home. But that's life.

The ideal is for men and women to benefit from work-life balance. There is nothing evil about those goals.

Even if some of you blokes got your way and lived in a men-only 'utopia', you would still have to find someone to look after the children and the men would be sharing work and child care duties. It doesn't matter who does the jobs - is my main point - as long as the jobs (home/work/parenting) get done.

I agree with Pelican that it would be a damn site easier to be a 'father of the future' and stay home with the kiddies full time
(an often thankless job!), while you are on an ex-premiers pension!
No financial problems to argue about with the wife there.

Vanka and partimeparent really do have some issues with women and mothers! Do you guys not know some nice women and/or mothers then?

I agree with one thing anyway, the now old-fashioned notion of feminism (sooo 70's!) has not always resulted in a very good deal for women these days.

Not only do many married women now work outside the home in often full time jobs (most men are unable to support families on one income these days), but they continue to do the lion's share of housework and childcare duties as well.
Yes, that's a good deal alright- for men!

The women who are single ,or divorced mothers, raising children alone are often considered welfare cheats and/or 'destroying' the lives of their ex-partners/fathers of their kids for various reasons.

Damned if we stay with the man, and damned if we don't.

Yeah, sometimes it's hard to be a woman...

Maybe we don't do the heavy dirty jobs involved in manual labouring Vanka, and get paid megabucks for that, but many women do work in jobs where they clean up faeces, vomit, urine and blood, and endure physical and mental strain caring for the sick and disabled in our society for a mere pittance of pay.

Vanka thinks we should 'know' about all the hard work done in building a shopping centre. When I walk around a shopping centre with my husband on the weekend, I will be sure and ask him that question...

Do you know and care about all the dirty, filthy dangerous work that goes on in health care facilities then Vanka?

No?

Well, I hope YOU think about that when next you need care at a hospital.

Pelican and suzeonline,
Well I do think it is time for fathers to take more control of families, as a part of Save The Children.

What is the current situation:

- Australia now has one of the lowest rates of breastfeeding in the world.
- Australians now have increasing rates of obesity, which is now directly linked to the type of food being feed to children.
- Australia now has one of the highest rates of youth suicide, which mainly concerns boys, but girls have increasing rates of binge drinking and smoking.
- The number of disadvantaged children seems to be increasing, and the Smith family organisation estimates the number of disadvantaged children in Australia at over 600,000 (with about 200,000 children born each year).
- The rate of divorce has hardly declined, putting large numbers of children through the trauma of family separation.
- Large numbers of sons and daughters are now growing up rarely seeing their father or knowing who their father is.
- Children are now leaving the primary and secondary school systems, hardly knowing maths or science, and in some cases, hardly able to read or write English.

Can’t get much worse, and it is incredible that all this has occurred over a period of 20-30 years.

Mothers and feminists have been in control of families over that 20-30 year period.

vanna
That list is very negative and for those that fall in those categories it is very sad, however those issues are not gender issues, they are social issues.

Marriage breakdown is not a gender issue it is a relationship issue. Men are also capable of doing bad things, relationship breakdown takes two and it is easy to blame the other party without taking the blinkers off and having some self-awareness about one's own contribution to marriage breakdown. Recognising mistakes is the first step to change and improvement.

Men sometimes abandon their families, men sometimes have affairs, men sometimes don't want to see their kids because it inteferes with their freedoms, men are sometimes violent, some men are single parents, some men are drug/alcohol abusers.

If you can't see that there will never be a solution. Blaming one section of society for 'everything' is not only using false assumptions but failing to see the big picture. But I suspect at this stage you will continue with your outlook until one day you might sit up and take a broader look without a personal agenda.

Well said Pelican, and much more restrained than I would have been :)
But you are right.

There is absolutely no point in blaming one gender over another for all societies woes.

I think many men and women work quite well, both together and apart, in stuffing up their own lives, and that of their children.

Vanna, you need to think again

Pelican and suzanonline,

“The data suggest that more than one-third of Australian children do not see their fathers, while 17% have day-only contact. The levels of contact are a source of dissatisfaction for both mothers and fathers. Although the majority of resident mothers expressed satisfaction with the contact arrangements, 41% reported that they would like to see more father–child contact taking place,while only 5% thought that there was too much contact. By contrast, almost three quarters (74%) of non-resident fathers wanted more contact with their children.”

www.aifs.gov.au/conferences/aifs8/parkinson.pdf

Of course this is not gender related.

And that is why the author has chosen to write about fathers and families, and not mothers and families.

Or, maybe the author did not want to write about the true nature of motherhood in the country.

The true nature of motherhood in the country is similar to a state of disaster.

vanna
There is shared-parenting now. A mother cannot refuse access to children unless there is a restraining order or supervised access due to previous violence/sexual abuse.

There are some fathers who don't want to see too much of their children. A friend of mine got no child support, raised her kids very much on her own, not because she did not allow access, but because he was too busy establishing his new business (hiding money) and supporting a new girlfriend half his age.

Despite your attitude, men are not saints and women are not demons as you would make the world. This is the same attitude as the extremist feminist who believe that all men are B*stards. Can you see the similarity.

Change won't happen unless men and women work together. I hope for your own peace of mind you come to see that yourself.

With regard to the statistic of 74% of non resident fathers wanting greater access to their children, I wouldn't want to make a generalisation, but know that in my own personal circumstances that my Ex tells just about everyone he meets how much he loves his kids, loves spending time with them and wishes that he could spend more time with them.

Unfortunately for the kids, he has never requested more than every other weekend, and when asked if he wants more time he refuses.

It just makes me take that particular statistic with a grain of salt. As much as I'm sure it is true for many fathers, there are also many whose own ego will not allow them to answer that question truthfully.

Pelican

Disregarding divorce and fatherless children (that mysteriously coincide), how do you account for these little hicups on the road to motherhood perfection in our feminist society.

-Australia now has one of the lowest rates of breastfeeding in the world.
- Australians have increasing rates of obesity, which is now directly linked to the type of food being fed to children.
- Australia now has one of the highest rates of youth suicide, which mainly concerns boys, but girls have increasing rates of binge drinking and smoking.
- The number of disadvantaged children seems to be increasing, and the Smith family organisation estimates the number of disadvantaged children in Australia at over 600,000 (when only 200,000 children are born each year).
- Children are now leaving the primary and secondary school systems, hardly knowing maths or science, and in some cases, hardly able to read or write English.

Families have been run more by mothers than by fathers in the past 20-30 years, and the results have been disasterous.

Vanna, you seem to be repeating yourself.
Haven't you already blessed us with this post?

Where are your stats?

You are probably right about the breastfeeding though, many fathers don't like 'their' women breastfeeding.
There is a mistaken rumour out there that women end up with saggy breasts if they breastfeed, and men don't like that apparently.

Suxanonline,
Very typical.

If a woman doesn’t breastfeed, its because of fathers.

Complete rubbish, but in our feminist society, males are always to blame, or, if a woman does something wrong, its because a man has made her do it wrong.

In our feminist society, men have very little influence over what women do.

The propaganda that women are the “careers” has meant that motherhood is not investigated or checked, but when the statistics are looked at, motherhood is in an abysmal mess.

Vanna<"Complete rubbish, but in our feminist society, males are always to blame, or, if a woman does something wrong, its because a man has made her do it wrong."

Lol Vanna, that's the pot calling the kettle black isn't it?

In our patriarchal society, females are always to blame, or, if a man does something wrong, it's because a female has made him do it wrong.

Have you, or have you not, just blamed females for absolutely every problem in our society?

I am amazed you haven't yet blamed females for global warming.
Or have you

Suzanonline,
I do think motherhood in this country should more closely studied, as the statistics show that motherhood is in an abysmal mess.

However I would think that university academics would be the last people in the country to subjectively study motherhood.

Too much assuming that mothers are carers, while fathers are the abusive, patriarchal evil ones, who don’t spend enough time with their children and don’t pay enough child support.